Prologue:

I’m somewhat of an expert when it comes to telling people what they want to know. I’ve had plenty of practice. Avoiding questions from my parents and therapists, friends wondering where I go on the weekends, and why my mom gave our cat to my cousin…I’m good at lying to people, and they’re good at believing me, because they’re human, and very easy to fool.
But I’m not good at lying to people who have me handcuffed to a table, under disgusting rest-stop bathroom lights that show every zit, pimple, cut, scratch, scar, mark, lump, bump, and bruise I’ve had since birth, while they stare at me from that one-way glass window. Like they don’t think I know they’re standing in there, watching my every move, just incase I go nuts again and start stabbing nurses with a nail file.

I get a lot of praise, which is funny, because I don’t feel like I did a good job. I don’t feel much of anything, actually. The doctor says that’s normal, because manic depression and schizophrenia patients are “Not witness to the natural biological changes of the human psyche, and therefore do not react in a natural way to traumatic situations,” So, I’m crazy.

They don’t like using that word, and I told them I don’t care, because there isn’t any use hiding behind soft language. They didn’t like that either.

I told them to go to Hell.